Have You Been on a Digital-Only Magic Carpet Ride?

The digital-only payer—one who has left behind the physical wallet and its tangible payment forms—is a popular creature in the media, one who fronts declarations that all-digital payments have taken over. But the data points paint a more complicated picture, one that includes a small representation of digital-only payers but many, many more who still leave the house with wallets, cards, and cash. 

This Javelin Strategy & Research report digs into the numbers to identify the digital-only payers, the path they’ve taken, and their demographic attributes. Making them ever more elusive is that fact that they defy easy categorization. Further, for digital-only payments to truly take over, factors beyond the transaction—widespread availability and potential use of digital ID, for example—will have to fall in line. It will take a while.

Key questions discussed in this report: 

• What is the progression from digital-first to digital-only among payers? 
• Who are the digital-only payers and how many of them exist? 
• What are the hurdles to greater adoption of digital-only purchasing behavior?